


Cold War

by 221b_hound



Series: Lock and Key [13]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: John only forgives so much, M/M, Mycroft's Meddling, Scars, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-17 20:20:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9341669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: Mycroft visits John to share that scotch John offered, as a truce. Mycroft has fundamentally misunderstood what this is about, and John's forgiveness extends only so far.





	

The Wednesday after John and Sherlock’s sex weekender at the Holmes cottage, Mycroft came to Baker Street to mark his truce with John with the promised glass of scotch. Naturally, Mycroft waited until Sherlock was out before going up the stairs.

John had heard his tread on the steps, and two tumblers were already out when Mycroft let himself in. John lifted the bottle of 18 year old Talisker by way of greeting, then poured.

Mycroft sat in Sherlock’s chair, John in his own. Each raised the glass in wordless salute, and they sipped.

Mycroft peered over the rim of the glass at John. Contemplating. Judging.

John had long years of practice in ignoring long, silent, judgemental looks. Harry could be gold-medal disparaging for her country, and neither Holmes had anything on any one of a dozen commanding officers from his army days. Or on the dead-eyed Taliban insurgent who looked him in the eye before shooting him. _That_ was one intimidating fucker.

Mycroft Holmes trying to intimidate him was always almost funny in comparison.

Mycroft sighed and abandoned the effort. “Dr Watson… John. We are family now, after all.”

John saluted his putative brother in law with the glass, took another sip, and waited.

“I appreciate,” Mycroft said, as though measuring every word carefully, “That we have been able to come to an understanding. Serbia was.” Mycroft swallowed. “Difficult.”

For a whole minute, John let himself believe that he and Mycroft really were having a moment.

“I know that you appreciate that Sherlock doesn’t always make it easy to… care for his best interests, John.”

John tilted the glass between thumb and forefinger, letting the Talisker swirl, an amber eddy. He allowed a slightly rueful moue to speak for him on the subject.

“It is such a relief to know that there is someone he trusts to do so.”

“Yes.” John sipped the Talisker.

“And if you ever need anything from me…”

“Hmm.” Non-committal. Another sip.

“You know him very well, though I of course have insights that you can’t share. As siblings do.”

“Right.”

“Perhaps I could call in more often. For a chat. See how he’s doing.”

“In his absence, of course.”

“That does tend to simplify things.”

John swirled the scotch in his glass and kept his steady gaze on Mycroft Holmes. Mycroft gazed back, though that became an effort in the face of John’s thin-lipped smile.

“How much?” John asked.

“What?”

“To keep tabs on him for you. You offered money last time. How much?”

“You expect to be paid?”

“Sherlock told me off for not taking the money and splitting it with him.”

“It’ll hardly work if you _tell_ him.”

The sneer had no effect on John at all.

“What do you think this is, Mycroft?”

“Nothing.” Mycroft was all business, all armour, again. “A drink. A truce between...” Mycroft smiled thinly too. “In-laws.”

“This thing.” John gestured in the air between the two of them. “This right now? You got him out of Serbia. It killed you to have to wait, to see how they beat him, but you didn’t have a choice then. I understand that. I forgive _that_. _That’s_ what this is. A truce, for unintended consequences. But we’re not friends, and I don’t forgive you for the rest of it.”

“Sherlock made his own choices, Dr Watson.”

“I know what Sherlock’s choices were. I know why he made them. He and I have made our peace, but you don’t get to pretend that I meant a damn to you when you were advising him. You don’t get to play the good guy, the misunderstood brother. I’m not playing this game with you any more.”

“Are you forbidding me to see my brother? I think you’ll find even Sherlock thinks that’s overstepping the mark.”

“As if I could enforce such a thing, even if I’d consider it. No. Sherlock’s the only one who gets to decide about his problems with you. What I mean is, I’m done with buying this myth you peddle that you’re the smart one, or that you ultimately mean well by him, or me. It’s all games to you. You love Sherlock, but that doesn’t keep him from being a piece on your board. Your love for your brother is less important to you than how far you can use him without breaking him.”

Mycroft was pale; rigid; angry. “You overstep-"

“I get siblings, you know,” John said calmly. “Do you know the best thing that Harry does for me? She stays away. At least she knows that she’s toxic. You’ve got no idea. Or you do and you don’t care.”

“He would never have been in Serbia if it wasn’t for you, and his absurd sentimental attachment to you.”

“Fuck you. You don’t get to blame Serbia on me either. While you were screwing up those plans and having to go get him, having to watch them beat him until you could, I was visiting his grave.”

“When you weren’t hooking up with an assassin.”

Mycroft actually flinched at the expression on John’s face.

“He was dead, Mycroft. _He was dead_. However you want to ret-con that, his death was my reality. I watched him die and I tried to fill that void instead of letting it kill me. With Mary. Who shot him. All those choices that weren’t in my hands, because of Moriarty and because of you. Manipulation and lies. I’m done with it.  This truce is an amnesty for Serbia. But I don’t trust you. I don’t trust the way you tell yourself Sherlock matters to you at the same time that you use him. I’m done buying the lie that you only want what’s best for him. You have no idea what’s best for him. You think he wants what you want, but Sherlock isn’t you.”

“Sherlock has let it pass…”

“I’m not Sherlock either. And what you did to him wasn’t the same as your part in what was done to _me_. And I don’t forgive you for one minute of that. Letting me believe he was dead. Using me as much as you used him.”

Mycroft’s grip on the glass was white-knuckled. John’s expression softened slightly.

“You didn’t mean for him to be hurt so badly. I know you love him. But you have to stop this. You have to learn some other way to love him.”

“Perhaps I should get a _tattoo_ ,” Mycroft sneered. And he almost flinched in the two seconds it took for John to set down his glass with a clack and sit forward in his seat, feet on the floor as though ready to rise and take the fight right to Mycroft where he sat.

“No,” said John: short, sharp, loud, hard. Like a bullet. “You don’t get to judge that, either. You don’t get a say in what I did or why I did it, or in Sherlock’s choices either. You don’t get to mock us for what we lost, or what we found. You get to have this one amnesty for the scars your scheming gave him, and then you get to fuck off.”

Mycroft took another deliberate sip of the Talisker to show he wasn’t rattled – to John, nothing could have demonstrated more clearly how rattled he was– then rose. He took up his umbrella. “It’s been enlightening, Dr Watson.”

“John,” said John, with his razor-smile. “We’re practically in-laws now, remember?”

Mycroft left.

*

Sherlock returned a half hour later, took one look at John in his chair, sipping Talisker, and said, “You fought with Mycroft.”

“Hmm.”

“Not much of a truce, then. I could have told you.”

“More of a ceasefire I suppose. For now.” John reached out to snag Sherlock’s hand and tug him closer and down for a kiss. Sherlock pressed his lips to John’s, then he took the glass from John’s hand and flopped into his own chair to finish what was obviously Mycroft’s unfinished scotch.

“He wanted me to spy on you again,” said John, “Though he seemed reluctant to pay this time, so I can’t split the proceeds.”

“Oh John. Still failing to make the most of your business opportunities.”

“It’s a failing, I admit.”

Sherlock’s phone rang. Sherlock raised an eyebrow at the caller ID, and uncharacteristically answered it. Then Sherlock grinned at John while the voice in his ear buzzed, and then he said, “Well, of course he asked how much. I’m trying to instil better financial habits in my husband. What was that? Speak up. I can’t hear you over the sound of how excruciatingly predictable you are.”

He thumbed the call off, tossed the phone onto the carpet and in two strides was across the space and in John’s lap, knees either side of John’s thighs.

“What on earth did you say to him?” Sherlock wriggled closer into John’s lap.

John’s expression was kind of both modest and self-satisfied. “I talked about toxins, mainly. And boundaries.”

“He told me,” said Sherlock, “That he doesn’t know if you are the worst or best thing to ever happen to me.”

“No, he wouldn’t know.” John’s hands slid up Sherlock’s thighs to his hips, then up to Sherlock’s waist. He kissed Sherlock’s jaw, his throat.

“My brother’s an idiot,” said Sherlock.

“I’d noticed.”

Sherlock gave John a searching look. “Toxins and boundaries?”

“Not necessarily in that order.”

Sherlock pressed himself closer to John.

“And it’s left you in a mood to shag or, no… to _be_ shagged senseless.”

“You’re a bloody marvel.” John squeezed Sherlock's arse and lipped his earlobe.

Sherlock took John’s face in his hands and kissed him thoroughly, nudging his growing erection up close to John’s belly. “I’m going to shag you and then suck you off,” he breathed into John’s mouth, then licked.  Kissed again. “In that order.”

Sherlock caught up the bottle of scotch as the headed for the bedroom; a little while later they were using 18 year old Talisker very disrespectfully, splashing it over nipples and cocks and navels. A celebratory tipple of their own.


End file.
